"Over There" with the AustraliansKnyvett, R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh)
History
"Over There" with the Australians
Knyvett, R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
But on the longer journey across the Atlantic from England to America
there is more time to get one's sea-legs, and on the last day or two
passengers begin to enjoy the sea journey. But this is quite enough of
the sea for any one but an amphibian. The three weeks journey from
America to Australia gets decidedly monotonous, and long before
sighting Sydney Heads and entering the world's "pearl of ports" every
one has had his fill of the sea. But lengthen that journey by three
and you have had enough sea travel for a lifetime.
Well, we left England and for an eternity sailed south, seeing land
only on one day and smelling it for a week. Then we clung to the end
of Africa for seven days and then sailed east for a decade till
Australia got in our way, and as it could not be passed without a long
detour, we were deposited on its soil. In nine weeks we only called at
two ports, Freetown on the west coast of Africa, and Durban on the east
coast. Freetown has the usual strong combination smell of nigger,
cinnamon, and decaying vegetation, in an atmosphere of heavy steam,
that characterizes all tropical towns inhabited by our "black brother."
We were told that this place had but a few years ago the pleasant
subtitle of "The White Man's Grave." If you served one year here in
the government service you were entitled to retire for life on a
pension, but the likelihood was that long before your term was up you
would retire to a six-foot-by-two allotment near the beach, in the
company of countless predecessors. But science had been at work here,
as at Panama, and wire gauze and the kerosene spray had captured the
first trenches of yellow fever and malaria, and against these weapons
of the medico all counter-attacks have been unavailing. Some strong
hand was ruling in this town, for the streets were spotless and the
dogs lean. And, oh, how the nigger does hate cleanliness! Evidently
this town was free in a real sense because well disciplined. We were
told that all the white people lived up on the hill that backed the
town and many kind invitations of hospitality were sent to us; so those
whose wills were stronger than the enervating hand of the
weather-master boarded the toy train and were carried up and up toward
the summit of the hills above the steam heat, where the air seemed to
be fanned from the very cooling-house of God. I had the pleasure of
being entertained by a French priest who had been on the western front
in the early days of the war, and he added to our knowledge more
first-hand stories of the bestial Huns' ravaging of convents and raping
of nuns. The bishop of this protectorate could not do enough for us,
and although we were not of his faith, he looked on us as children who
were very dear to the heart of God because of our sacrifices of blood
and flesh for the right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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